


Shattered Shade

by duointherain



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-01-21 05:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21294113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: Duo's got mental health issues and is living an isolated life where he writes pretty stories - then a bleeding Heero shows up on his doorstep and all bets are off.
Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Shattered Shade 1/?  
by duointherain

disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

The things that are true in the world don’t always correspond to what we wish were true. 

“I’m sure I know you from somewhere,” the woman said as she set a stack of school uniforms down on the return counter. 

Duo Maxwell, all of twenty-two and a little pudgy, his braid pulled back with only a bit of bangs and those were dyed blue, that Duo Maxwell shook his head. “It’s lovely to meet you today though. Is thee anything wrong with these?”

“The school said they didn’t need them,” she said, studying his face for another moment before letting it go, “After they said they needed them.” 

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, quickly scanning through her return. “Do you have the card ending in 9823? I can give you cash if you show me the card.” 

“Cash would be great,” she said as she rummaged through her purse for the card. “Oh I know who you look like! You look like that pilot from the war, Heero Yuy!” 

Duo’s eyes widened, lips tightening, clenching down on the laugh burning its way up through his lungs. Tears glittered at the edge of his lashes. For a moment his throat was too closed off to answer, but he forced a slow breath, a nice customer service smile, “I am not Heero Yuy. I think he’s a colonel in the Preventers now. He was on the news a couple nights ago, talking about efforts to protect President Relena.” 

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. You’re sure you’re not a pilot, one of those kids?”

“I work at Walmart. The one true constant in the universe.” Duo said, none of which was a lie. Countries come and go, but Walmart persists. “Here is your change. Have a nice day!”

He could have gone into Preventers with Heero. He could have done security for Quatre. He could have hidden on disability. He could finish school someday. He didn’t. He might never. 

Forty-five customers later, he cleaned up his counter and went home. It was day. He didn’t know what day it was. It didn’t really matter. 

His apartment was two rooms, one of which was a small bathroom. He had a bed, which was a couple of mattresses and a box spring all stacked up in the corner with some butterfly sheets and a green pastel comforter that never really got straightened out. Three cases of diet soda sat by a pillow that held his laptop. He’d painted on the walls (that was going to cost him if ever moved out) and hung some of his paintings on the walls. There was a speaker on the ground and when he unlocked the door, it started playing his favorite playlist. 

Maybe the other pilots were just less fucked up. He didn’t know. Trowa had become a lawyer for his husband Quatre. Wufei went into politics and sometimes was on Relena’s side and sometimes he wasn’t and all Duo knew for sure about that was he never wanted to be in the room with them arguing ever again. Quatre ran WEI. Heero was close to the top of the chain at Preventers. 

His robotic kitty rubbed up against his thigh where he sat on the floor with his pillow and his laptop wedged between his legs. He petted her, feeling her warmth and her purr just as satisfyingly as if she had been a real cat. She could put up with him. It was nice. 

For a couple moments, he rested his fingers on a well-worn keyboard and imagined what he wanted to write about that night. The pattern was work, write, sleep, repeat. In words he was safe. In words he had friends. 

On the page a village came to life, with houses the branches of impossibly tall trees, like the redwoods he’d seen on Earth, but more like maple trees with glittering crystal leaves that caught the sun to power everything. His character stood at the end of a long branch, though it was thick enough to hold his weight. His feet started the scene barefooted, but backspaced into great big harpy claws. A moment later huge black, no iridescent blue and purple wings unfurled spreading out and stretching. In his imagination, he could feel the wings stretching and it felt so very good! The sky had been like noon time blue, but now it was dawn, the sky steadily darkening until there were glittering stars everywhere! 

He leapt from the branch, letting the wind lift his him, push against his wings and he shoved back, crawling higher, up towards the beautiful night sky. Warm air thick with the scene of some flowers that Duo had no name for embraced him, promising him that he was safe and loved. There weren’t any other people in this world of his that he was writing about. There were friends though. 

A parakeet looking bird that was as big as he as glided up next to him, brushing its green feathers over the tip of his. He grinned and rolled. Dash rolled with him and they headed down towards a beach. 

The beach was pristine, with a nice surf and pale sand. Duo had an inclining that there might be pirates somewhere in the cove, but he wasn’t ready to write about that yet. When he landed, his feet turned back into human feet and his wings turned to black glitter that just floated away. Dash turned into a cat-sized parakeet and settled on his shoulder. This was his world and everything happened how he wanted it to. 

Wearing worn jeans, a favorite pair that he’d lost in his last eviction, he padded barefoot across the warm wet sand to a cabana with a bar and stools. Here he sat himself down and a bottle of beer and a plate of beans and rice appeared. Dash hopped onto the bar, glittered into the form of a parakeet colored cat and then tried to climb into Duo’s arms. “Fine! Fine! Pets it is!” 

All this writing was going to pay off. If he were careful with his money, in about three years, he’d be able to have it all translated into a virtual world and he’d never have trouble sleeping again. This world wasn’t going to miss him. It didn’t miss him now. This world wasn’t going to have panic attacks or depression. 

Maybe today would be a good day to create a boat. Maybe he wanted to be a pirate captain! 

Then his phone rang. 

He ignored it because no one ever called him other than bill collectors and salesmen. The ringer was almost always off. He didn’t remember turning it on. 

He looked away from the page he was writing, back into his unlit cluttered room. Scowling, he stared at the phone that had a contact named, “Answer the phone! It’s 01!” 

“Well, then,” so he accepted the call, holding the phone to his ear with one hand, the other hand on the keyboard, just the feeling of keys under his fingertips making him feel calmer. “Maxwell.” 

“Help me,” Heero said, voice hoarse and wispy. 

Duo sat up straighter. Heero had punctured lungs. “Location?”

“Your fucking front door.” 

“Oh,” Duo said, scrambling for pants and shoes, a shirt, his keys, “Coming.”

“Bring a weapon. No hospital.” 

“‘Kay,” Duo agreed as he fished a pistol that fired energy bullets from by his bed. “Three minutes.” `

It took Duo three minutes to make it down ten flights of stairs and he jumped the last one. Pistol out, safety off, he opened the door cautiously. The air smelled like blood. He totally had not missed that. 

Carefully, pistol ready, he stepped out into the darkness of the narrow alley that was his front door. Heero was slumped against the wall. If that was how Heero looked, Duo did not want to be the guys that he’d been fighting with. 

Lips tight, Duo squatted down and checked for a pulse on Heero’s wrist. His own heart didn’t start beating again till he found it. As gentle as he could he shifted Heero over his shoulder and carried him inside. Heero Yuy might not be pudgy, but he wasn’t made of helium either. Duo squared his shoulders and started back up the ten flights. 

On the way he reached out to an old acquaintance. “Hey! Yeah, it’s Duo.”

The voice on the other end smirked. 

Duo could just feel it in his blood. This was going to be expensive.

“I need a doctor, good doctor. probable internal injuries, no questions, no tales.” 

“Oh of course,” she said, veritably purring. “Anything you need, my love. Easy terms, easy payback.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Duo said with a grunt having made it halfway. “Fast. I need the doctor here fast.” 

“I’ll add that in,” she purred. “You’re wasted working a shop. You need a new job.” 

“Gloat later, help now,” Duo snapped. He’d just traded his life for Heero’s but some things had to be done. 

“Med team is inbound, Duo. Ten minutes. If the damage is severe enough, they might have to remove the patient to our ‘hospital’. Just be warned. I’ll be there for you. I have a job for you later.” 

“Agreed,” Duo said, trying to hide his sigh. 

People were too fucking dangerous. 

He let himself into his little apartment and laid Heero down on his bed. Heero was completely out. If he hadn’t been before getting carried up ten flights of stairs with a punctured lung would do it to you. Just to prove he was right, Duo pushed up Heero’s shirt, then unbuttoned it. It would at least save it for when the med team got there. Finding the bullet hole wasn’t hard and he grabbed his towel off the floor and applied pressure. 

Suddenly his room seemed wildly unsanitary and nasty. “Way to go, ‘Ro. You’re unconscious and I still feel like I’m not good enough. What the fuck are you doing getting shot and where’s the rest of your team. Fuck, I’ve missed you. I’m gonna write you into my story. Then I might go fuck up the people who did this to you. That be okay with you?” Duo asked, bloody fingers brushing across Heero’s bruised cheek. 

Heero’s hand flew up and caught Duo’s hand. “Keep talking, please.”

“Yeah,” Duo agreed. “What happened, Heero?”

“No talk, only listen,” Heero said, swollen lips creaking into a small smile. “I won’t let you get into trouble.” 

“Fuck, Heero, trouble is my middle name.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad guys come for Heero. They get more than they bargained for...

Shattered Shade 2/?  
by duointherain 

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. 

Warning: I get pretty out there with my tech. It’s a good thing you guys are tolerant of me :) <3

There was just a feeling as Duo came up the last flight of stairs. It wasn’t that he has a spider sense or anything mystical and nothing seemed out of place, but the hair stood up on the back of his neck and he broke into a run. His hand over Heero’s waist reassured him that Heero was breathing, even if he was bleeding on him. It was not effective to yell at people that they should stop bleeding. That never worked. 

“Pika! Open my door,” he yelled when he got close enough to his own room. 

The door swung open in just enough time for him to slide in, literally feet braced, sliding along the bare linoleum floor, along a clear path all the way to his bed. “Pika! Close the door, full lock.”

“Of course,” a small holographic Pikachu said cheerfully. “Duo, you asked me to let you know if there were threats. There are currently fifteen, mostly human breaching defined boundaries. They are well-armed. Four of them have projectile weapons. Six of them are genetically enhanced. Pika! Pika!” 

Duo grinned, adrenaline kicking in in a massive way. Gently, he laid Heero down on his bed, checked for a pulse. It was strong. Heero was like that. Duo tucked his pistol into the holster strap at the small of his back. He had limited ammunition. Blunt force trauma was much more environmentally friendly, anyway.

“ETA on the med team?” Duo asked 

“Forty-five seconds. Shall I open the door?” 

“Are there suspected hostiles in range of my door?”

“No.” 

“Open the door then, but after the med team is in, run protocol Avalon Mists.”

“Protocol Avalon Mists requires hemetic and password confirmation,” Pikachu said while tapping a yellow foot on the stack of books he was standing on. 

“Gotcha,” Duo said, even as he took another moment to caress Heero’s forehead. Heero looked so much older, so stressed. “Everything’s going to be okay, ‘Ro. I’ll make everything okay.”

With the seconds he had remaining, he closed his laptop and shoved it between the mattresses. He tossed the pillow that was his desk up on the bed by the wall. 

Then he was rummaging in a pile that kind of puked itself out of his closet. “Pika, run the hot oil protocol.” 

A tall slender robot, dancer elegant, but with no chance of being a human in a suit, cuz there just wasn’t enough space at the pelvis to put a human in that, strode through the door. “Hello patients!” It said as it held out its arms and spun around, “I’m Marty! I’m here to help. My pronouns are he/him!” 

Duo looked up from the pile he was digging though, gave a grimace. “Hey Marty. I’m Duo, he/him. Patient’s on the bed. Heero, he/him. Don’t leave right away, Marty. I’m probably going to need medical care too.” 

“Sure thing, Duo. Oh what do you have there!? That’s very interesting,” Marty said, leaning over to stare at the object Duo had pulled out of his closet pile. 

“Just something I was playing with, you know, in case of emergencies,” Duo said. The thing looked like a very thin strip of LED lights. It looked like something one would find in a rubbish heap. Duo peeled the sticky strip from the back and pasted it on his left arm, forearm to his knuckles. 

The little Pikachu hologram had rolled out a small household robot which woke up and set about putting two pans of water on the stove. 

Behind a painting with a black background and dozens of purple swirls, Duo pressed his thumb to a small pad that pricked him for blood. “Password is 12830129-9332aebesa.” 

Pikachu jumped up, spun around, landed back on three paws and shouted, “Pika! Pika! Avalon Mists is now descending. Duration three hours, unless extended or lifted.” 

“Good deal,” Duo said, wishing he had more time. That’s always how it came down to it in a battle, always wanting more time. 

Marty had shifted form, legs extending so that he’d become almost a canopy bed over Duo’s ratty little bed. Scanning tech trailed bars of light over Heero, almost like a caress, and Duo took a deep breath, feeling at peace that the person he loved the most in all the earthsphere was getting healed. He’d be okay. Duo would move the world to make that true. 

With the seconds he had left, he kicked his stuff as far to each side of his small little space as he could. In doing so, he excavated the fancy truncheon that Wufei had given him a couple years before out from the heap, pressed his thumb to it to wake it up, and grinned at the satisfying energy hum to it. 

So there he stood, feet planted, a faint green glow flickering up his left arm, matte black truncheon held in his right hand, a feral grin on his face, door open, light from the hallway spilling into his space. Fifteen professional mercenaries might have been enough to take a severely injured Heero, but it wasn’t going to be enough for the God of Death. 

When the first of them reached his door, casing a shadow right over the top of him, a feral hunger spread through him and he wanted this, wanted violence so very much. 

The woman in his door was half in a suit, helmet without face shield, armor over her shoulders and calves, up the sides of her thighs. She held a pistol in either hand as she sized him up. Her eyes locked on Heero and she smiled. “Mission leader, target in sight. Permission to terminate?”

“Yo! Bitch. It ain’t gon be that easy,” Duo said, grinning like a mad man. 

She smushed up her lips like he was gum on her shoes. “Fat boy, get out of the way, or I might hurt you accidentally.” 

“Get the fuck outta my building, or I’m gonna hurt your ass on purpose.” Duo honestly wasn’t sure she was going to get the chance to retreat, probably. If she left now, he’d probably let her go. 

“You gonna hit me with your toothpick?” Replying a question in her headset, she assured them, “No, there’s no opposition. It’s Yuy, a med bot, and a marshmallow of a civilian.”

A small viewport extended from her helmet. Duo waved to whoever had the good sense to see how he was. Her smile grew. 

Her smile suggested to him that she was more educated now, but still too stupid to retreat. 

“Oh, you have let yourself go, Duo Maxwell, haven’t you?”

“Meh,” he said, shrugging. “My love of cake ain’t gon save yer ass.” 

“I have two guns.” She said, as she pointed both of them at him. “You got a stick and some mood lighting.” 

“Won’t matter. I’m still me and you’re still you. I also feel like I oughta tell you that I ain’t that well balanced. You brought bullets into my station and one of you all put a hole in someone I care about. I really wanna hurt you.” 

She fired. 

Duo lunged. 

Small lasers spaced around his ceiling took out her bullets. Light beats flying rocks. The strip on his arm woke up, giving him an energy shield in a vibrant green. He flipped the truncheon around so his hand was on the L bar and put the short end right through her solar plexus. Her arms went lip at her sides. After a second, the pistols dropped to the grungy floor and her mouth opened slightly. She stared down at him. He gave her a mad hatter grin. “I’m stronger than I look.” 

He had to put a boot in her belly and shove to get his stick back though. By then he had another half a dozen hostiles in his hallway. He took a couple steps back into his little studio apartment, still smirking happily. One down and he didn’t even take any damage yet. Over confidence’ll get yer ass dead. 

The green light from his shield cast an eerie madness over his face. Chin tucked towards his chest, grin wide and full of white, dark purple eyes glittering with a ferocious hunger. “You’re not gonna get Heero today. I’m not gonna warn you again. You need to get out of my building while you can.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” a man said, stepping forward, smiling like a good used car salesman. “He’s mostly dead anyway. It’s not like he’s been around, being your best buddy. He hasn’t had time for you. He’s a corporate pawn and he deserves what I’m going to give him.” 

“Well, I’m hard to be around, in his defense and none of that shit matters. He’s my friend and you aren’t going to get to him.” 

“There are fifteen of us, one of you and you’re, well,” the man said, a bit more edge to his smile, “a bit out of training.” 

“There are fourteen of you. I don’t need to be in top shape to fight the likes o’you.” 

“We don’t have anything against you,” Leader Boy said. “Just get out of our way.” 

“Fuck. I never ever thought I’d say this, but I’m tired of talking. Let’s go.”

<><><>

At the police station...

“Sergeant! 510 Shark St. just went completely dark! All cameras are off and it’s drawing energy like crazy!” 

The sergeant, a woman with a touch of grey at her temples, sipped her coffee and looked over the rookie’s shoulder. “Oh that’s interesting. Gonna be an interesting night. That’s protocol Avalon Mist.” 

“So a whole apartment building just goes dark and we stand by and wait? Shouldn’t we go investigate?” 

Sergeant Rivera laughed. “I wouldn’t go near that build until the protocol is lifted, and you shouldn’t either, if you want to live long enough to not be a rookie anymore. Let Duo Maxwell finish whatever it is he’s started. Then we’ll go in, get the bodies and the documentation that it was self-defense. Because it will be.” 

“I know that name! Didn’t Andrews and Zane arrest him for vandalism last month? I mean, he’s harmless. He’s just a short little fat man with too much hair and dark circles under his eyes. What’s he going to do?”

Rivera pulled up a screen, fingers motioning in front of it, until she pulled up the ids of a few of Duo’s hostiles. “Look, these people, they’re mercenaries. They get through immigration with high-quality fake IDs because no one would let them past security on their own. They’re all wanted killers. There’s probably bounties that he’ll be able to collect.”

“He’s a citizen! If like six killers are attacking a citizen, shouldn’t we go help the poor man!? He’s not really mentally all there!” 

“Look here, Riley. The only ones in that building that need help are the ones attacking Duo Maxwell. He’s not right in the head. He probably has never been, but the war didn’t help at all. Having him here protects this colony. You’ll be on clean up detail. You’ll understand.” 

“He’s enhanced?”

“Probably, but I ain’t asking for a DNA sample, if you know what I mean. Just go to lunch. It’ll probably be over when you get back.” 

Duo’s arrest photos from the vandalism charge had been all over the station when Riley started. Head tilted, paint smeared across his face, crooked grin, and everyone had thought it was like some kind of motivational poster. “But he seemed so harmless!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero watches Duo fight, unaware that his whole life has changed

Shattered Shade 3   
by Duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

“Get off me,” Heero hissed. 

“I am Marty. I am a human-based fully augmented medical system. I have been engaged to provide you with emergency care. My service does not attach a cost to you.” Marty smiled his best patient calming smile, while having enough working slender appendages to like a human-headed spider. 

Heero had enough pain to cloud his judgment and he knew this. He’d been held prisoner and subjected to interrogations for nearly a week before he became obsessed with the idea of seeing Duo one last time before he died. During the worst moments of the experience, he’d focused so intensely on the memory of Duo’s stupid purple eyes, so expressive and emotional. There was that smile, soft lips, some reckless comment almost always percolating just behind those lips. When they pulled out fingernails, he imagined his fingers brushing over those lips. 

He understood that the weird, almost not even human anymore tech on Duo’s stupid and unconventional colony was trying to help him, but he didn’t think it could save his life. He also recognized he wasn’t being very rational. It was so hard to tell if the bag of broken marbles that was his internal organs were really as bad as they felt or the bullshit on this colony could really do something. The precognition that he was going to die within moments felt so unbearably strong and all he wanted was to see Duo. 

Duo didn’t have to be looking at him or talking to him, but if he was going to die, he wanted Duo to be the last thing he saw. He had read that at the moment of death, the mind would make up a heaven fairytale and that it would see more real than anything life had to offer. In that death fantasy, he wanted to live a life with Duo that he could never have allowed in the debris of his real life. 

So he summed up his remaining energy and accepted that he didn’t have enough energy or strength to fight off the medical bot. Tears blinked into his eyes for the first time that he could remember. “I’ll beg. Please, please. I just want to see him as I die.” 

“You are not going to die, Heero,” Marty promised. “But I can move you so that you can see him.” 

“I want to help him. The people following me are dangerous!” 

A small drone detached from Marty’s back and darted like a little golden snitch over to the open door. “Can you see now,” Marty asked.  
From Heero’s preception, he was now sitting in a wheelchair at the open door. The bot still worked on him, but he didn’t care. The pain was down to a manageable level. He just felt so at peace, like he was watching an art show put on for him.

In fact, he lay bleeding on Duo’s bed, threads of nanite bots threading through his body like molecular sized pearl necklaces. Marty’s human/computer hybrid intelligence, went through him on a cellular level, repairing all the micro and critical internal bleeds, rebuilding damage to his heart caused by at least two trauma induced heart attacks, rebuilding damage to his amygdala likely caused a drug designed to remove impulse control. 

Under optimal circumstances, Marty would have been able to ask his patient for permission and direction on repairs, but this patient was not cooperative and the paying client had just ripped someone’s eyes out, so he just had to make the best choices that he could. This involved repairing very old and calcified modifications to his patient’s brain. They were very odd adjustments and Marty thought they must have been made to an adolescent brain. They were very unethical. So Marty repaired them, reconnecting the path to early memories, reconnecting stunted emotions. 

Heero shivered where he ‘sat’ in Duo’s door. A sense of appreciation rose in him, as if he’d never seen anything so beautiful. The grungy hall dripped in liquid red, glowing black under the flickering light of Duo’s shield. That braid swung and swirled. A long trail of glittering green gems glowed along its length. The worn gray pants, once probably black, hung on his frame now, as if he’d lost three sizes in the last fifteen minutes. The sweatshirt, still darkened by Heero’s own blood where Duo had carried him over the shoulder, now was torn, ripped and sliced by some bladed weapon. 

There were three opponents that Heero could see. Duo held ground between him and them. When Duo laughed, insane and violent, Heero felt a sudden rush of hope. He was going to live. Duo loved him. Duo must love him to fight like that. Duo had always loved him, but until that moment he had been unwilling to accept that someone so precious could love him, but now that seemed like the most reasonable interpretation. 

Two of them rushed Duo along the narrow hall. One slid at the last moment, getting under Duo’s shield, while the one on the front hit discharged an energy weapon at his chest. Duo blocked with his shield, growling as he pushed back. 

With great delight, Heero watched Duo’s braid rise up and stab at the woman who was now behind Duo. Heero wanted so badly to get up, to hurt her as she tried really hard to put a knife into Duo’s kidney. 

“No, no,” Marty yelled and Heero felt his vision start to dim. “No getting up. Watch only!” 

Duo punched, missed the man’s face, but ran his energy shield across unprotected skin, leaving a steaming pile of screaming barbeque. The last thing Heero saw was that braid dip in one eye and out the other, and sending nasal and zygomatic bone fragments flying as Duo lunged forward, running his shield over the unfortunate man’s face again. Heero slipped into darkness feeling outrageously happy. It could have been an army of assassins and Duo would kill them all. Heero forced himself to push against the darkness and he caught one more image of Duo, looking back over his shoulder at him, blood and bruising on his face, but those eyes, so alive and kind of insane under the green light. Duo was a god. Heero’s mental poetry had him meeting his god and feeling content. 

<><>

Sometime later, Heero woke just enough to realize that he wasn’t in pain anymore. He still felt extraordinarily happy, like that was the only word he had for the feeling, but it felt nothing like he’d ever really felt before. Moving just a little and he found his hand on Duo’s head, hair still slightly damp and fanned out on small bed. He sat up just a little, lifting up to one elbow. “Duo, come lay next to me.” 

“Uh?” Duo said, looking up. All the green light was gone, just normal pale LED light now, but healing bruising covered Duo’s face like he’d landed on it. 

“Come here, please. Sleep on the bed with me.” 

“You sure?”

“Never more so.” 

“Okay,” Duo whispered, moving up next to Heero cautiously, until Heero got his arms around him, pulling him close. 

“I don’t know what it means yet, but I love you.” 

“More sleeping,” Duo said, a hand reaching back to rest on Heero’s hip. “Gonna be tired for a couple days.” 

“Sleep,” Heero said, not feeling sleepy at all, “I’ll take care of everything. I’ll take care of you.” 

Duo was already asleep. Heero frowned, holding him close. The Duo who had carried him up the stairs had been plump. Now he was skin and bones. Illegal technology was often illegal for good reasons.


End file.
